HORACE. She’s a perfect fool! Women are all alike. Mean and selfish, and sly and narrow-minded—oh, fearfully narrow-minded! I’m jolly well out of it, and I’m jolly glad to be so jolly well out of it! One thing I know—I’ll never speak to another woman again as long as I live. (_The Waits are heard singing a carol._) MESSENGER. You are still devoted to self in spite of the poor opinion of your friends. Have you no suspicion of yourself? HORACE. It strikes me that there is a lot of guess-work about you, and what’s more, you are making some uncommonly bad shots. You’ve pitched on me as an example of selfishness. Now, I’m not selfish. It’s the other people who are selfish. Not I. MESSENGER. Sublime conceit! HORACE. Oh, my goodness, there are the Waits! Where’s a policeman? I’ll have them moved on. MESSENGER. Why? HORACE. Why, listen to them! That’s why. MESSENGER. They are singing for charity. What they receive they give away. HORACE. Nonsense! They are singing because they like it. MESSENGER. They are singing to help others. HORACE. Well, they’re making a jolly row about it! MESSENGER. Have you ever done anything for others? HORACE. Permit me a word. You have advanced not a single argument why my conduct should be deemed reprehensible. We are quite well aware of our duty to each other, but in our highly organized society to-day we employ the important principle of the Division of Labor. Some attend to Charities, others to Science, others again to Production or Distribution, and so on and so on. MESSENGER. Continue your divisions,—some do the fun-making and some do the grieving, some do the feasting and some the fasting. You, Prince of Duncedom, go gather rainbows, photograph a sunset, make a dyke of sponge, a castle on quicksand, a pillar of jelly. It were as wise as to build a Society on Self. That is a cement of gunpowder which dries in time and, gathering force, shatters a continent. In all your heart-breaking history but one order has been founded upon Love. It has been growing slowly since the first Christmas. Tell this to your politicians, your false judges, to the fringe of corruption at the base of the Law, and to all others panting and raging round the Golden Grab-bag. HORACE. Oh, I see how it is. You have been reading our newspapers. They blackguard everything, themselves included. But now, Marsy, you must allow there has been a tremendous plunge ahead in the last hundred years.